Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Oh, this week is sooooooooo much easier than last week! No guilt here!

So, in this book, Mary Anne meets Logan. Does anything else matter? Almost every fucking book in the series mentions cute Logan with his cute Kentucky accent! And this is where it all began! Aren’t you totally psyched?!?!?

The plot, broadly sketched…

Mary Anne crushes on the new boy…the BSC give him a tryout, but everyone is embarrassed by the words “bra straps” (said in a whisper)…enter Jackie Rodowski…Logan asks Mary Anne on dates…Stacey decides to throw a party and give Mary Anne a surprise cake…Mary Anne gets embarrassed at a dance and flees her own party…she gets a kitten…and a boyfriend…and Logan becomes the very first associate member of the Baby-sitters Club…the end.

The fun stuff, with bullets!

Number one reason to join the BSC? “We baby-sit for the kids in our neighborhoods, and we have a lot of fun – and earn pretty much money, too.” That’s convincing...

“I’d never been very interested in boys, either. This wasn’t because I didn’t like them; it was because I was afraid of them. I used to think, What do you say to a boy? Then I realized you can talk to a boy the same way you talk to a girl. You just have to choose your topics more carefully. Obviously, with a boy, you can’t talk about bras or cute guys you see on TV [oh, so that’s what I’m doing wrong! See, I thought boys like hearing about underwear…], but you can talk about school and movies and animals [huh?] and sports (if you know anything about sports).” Love lessons from M.A.

Oh no! Don’t mention dads around Kristy, cause it makes her think of her own deadbeat one, despite her new Daddy Warbucks…

Mary Anne goes goo-goo over Cam Geary…going so far as using gum to hang posters in her locker.

Corrie Lalique. Heh. OMG, she’s 14 and she’s not flat!

I totally remembered this thing: “I was all set for eighth grade. My brand-new binder was filled with fresh paper; I had inserted neatly labeled dividers, one for each subject, among the paper; and a pencil case containing pens, pencil, an eraser, a ruler, and a pack of gum was clipped to the inside front cover.”

“We would have a real graduation ceremony in June. After that, we would go on to the high school.” Keep dreamin’, sweetheart!

ANM is the worst dialect writer. Ever. “ ‘In Luevulle. Ah’ve haid plainy of expuryence.’ ‘Way-ull.’” I can’t find any other examples right now, but you know what I’m saying…

“…so I put on a pair of small hoop earrings…” Um, I thought she didn’t have her ears pierced.

Oh, here’s Mr. Ohdner!

Yes, Claudia it must be hard to be a parent. But for more reasons than your kid putting stickers all over the door.

Apparently, Stacey remembers when she longed to be nine…

MARY ANNE’S DANCE/PARTY OUTFIT! HE-EY! “…a full white skirt with the words Paris, Rome, and London, and sketchy pink and blue pictures of the Eiffel Tower, the Tower Bridge, and other stuff scrawled all over it. She matched it up with a pink shirt and a baggy pink sweater…white slip-ons with pink and blue edging that matched the pink and blue in the skirt…” Oh, yeah. That’s hot!

Kristy cancels a BSC meeting so everyone can help Mary Anne get ready for the dance. MY ASS!

You might be wondering what everyone else wore to the dance…”Claudia was wearing short, tight-fitting black pants and a big white shirt that said BE-BOP all over it in between pictures of rock and roll dancers. She had fixed a floppy blue bow in her hair. Stacey was wearing a white T-shirt under a hot pink [wait for it…] jumpsuit. Dawn and Kristy looked more casual. Dawn was wearing a green and white oversized sweater and stretchy green pants. Kristy was wearing a white turtleneck shirt under a pink sweater with jeans. We just couldn’t seem to get her out of blue jeans.” Yup.

SMS dances had bands playing? Like, live ones?

Poor, old Mrs. Porter. Yeah, poor, her, living next to stupid bitch Karen.

How is people surprising you with a cake and presents like “one of those dreams in which you go to school naked, or study and study for an important test and then sleep through your alarm clock and miss it?” I like cake, I like presents. You should give me both! You should surprise me with both!

“Our club had boy members. Well, one anyway.” And that’s all there’ll ever be…

Logan Like Mary Anne! was one of my favorites. I remember the skirt and the whole super-organized binder for 8th grade shpiel also. Classic, truly classic. I totally agree with the british cover comments. And, I remember looking at the original American covers and thinking - wow! everyone looks so grown up and "sophisticated"!!! Also, why is Jackie Rodowsky looking at Logan as if he's going to jump his bones too?!?!!??! Disturbing...

Abbey, no kidding! I'm a native Louisvillian, too, and I always cringed at Logan's "dialect." He must have been born in Eastern Kentucky or the Deep South and then moved to Louisville, because not a single native Louisvillian that I know speaks like that. We sound more Midwestern. But oh well.

By the way, new reader here! (Of the blog, not the BSC books.) It's been a good 10 years since I've picked up a BSC book, so thanks for the trip down memory lane.

"Also, why is Jackie Rodowsky looking at Logan as if he's going to jump his bones too?!?!!??! Disturbing..."

Oh my god, it totally makes sense that it's JR on the cover, but until THIS SECOND, I had never noticed the jar was ON the character's HAND (as, of course, it happens in the book)! I thought MA and Logan were at school, like in a bio lab or something (what's up with the books on the desk? Surely they would be applying mayonaise in the kitchen...did they all go to the kitchen, get the mayo, and all traipse back to the bedroom to free little J?), and the ginger kid beside MA was just a particularly ugly FEMALE classmate of theirs who *also* had a crush on Logan! Because that adoring tilt of the head definitely indicates that someone would like Logan's balls in his face.

Hehe being from the UK, most of my BSC books are the British covers so I'm used to them! There are some covers that aren't good (such as this one! V creepy cover!), but I have to stand up for the UK versions as some of them are pretty good. In a way, I think it's what you're used to and have grown up with 'cause when I first saw a US cover, I thought they were scary looking!

Oh, another point about this book is that this is the first book where the BSC decide to ditch their friends from last year and sit together in the cafeteria as a clique :o

Artemis - good call about the BSC never really hanging out with anyone else after this book. And don't they even mention in this book how Claudia, Stacey and Dawn all eat lunch together with Kristy and Mary Anne now instead of with their separate groups? And they think Cokie, Grace and their clique are snobs...

"We baby-sit for the kids in our neighborhoods, and we have a lot of fun – and earn pretty much money, too.”

Is this a typo, Tiff, or is this the way it's actually written? I have to believe it's written this way, because you'd never make a mistake (*bows to the ulmighty BSC Queen*) But what does 'pretty much money' mean exactly?

The US cover (not the creepy one) has always made me think "Wow, Mary Anne looks in her mid-20s, and Logan looks more like Jeff Schafer, or at least around that age." They always looked really not the same age.

And I *NEVER* imagined Jackie looking like that. He looks like a girl! He's completely different on the cover of Kristy and the Walking Disaster.

Your blog makes me hate myself a little for having absolutely no taste as a child. Dear lord. I remember thinking Logan must've been a real dreamboat. And I, too, wanted the cities skirt. One day, I will have one! One day!

I'm trying to remember how the Australian kids (The eldest dated Mallory, didn't he?) spoke like. I just remember that they were all rangars (or, if you will, fire crotches) and were called Crocs or something.

DUDE- my sister in law is an elementary school teacher and ANN M MARTING came to her school and talked to the kids!! She teaches in Newport Beach, CA which is totally snobby and rich so the kid's parents probably paid an ass load to get her there. She said she is totally boring and un-hip (duh; 'cities' skirt with matching shoes; GROSS) and that she speaks in a monotone, boring voice and is so nerdy looking. All the kids just kept asking her if she was rich. If she comes back, I'll be in the front row asking her why she's so lame. I am hoping Francine Pascal will be next; I soo wanted to be Jessica Wakefield...

I just discovered this site via Pop Candy and I've spent the afternoon reading through the archives from the beginning and I'm SO GLAD I finally got to the Famous Cities Skirt. Ohhhh, Famous Cities Skirt.

I just wanted to say that this site is AWESOME and I will be coming back and reading this all the time to see what's new. Now I shall continue through the archives. I wasn't going to comment until I was done, but... FAMOUS CITIES SKIRT!

I think the british cover is uglier, but the ugliest of all is the spanish language cover for the bsc books... they're horriblee... OK, the cover for LLMA wasnt that bad actually... mary anne looked decent. but it I think Jackie Rodowsky looked loads "cuter" than Logan in the spanish cover

Logan Likes Mary Anne! is my all time favorite BSC ever. Mostly because of the famous cities skirt (which I coveted) and Mary Anne's hyper organized approach to beginning the 8th grade. It appealed to my slight OCD tendencies way back when.

It looks like an older dad-type man seducing a little girl!!!!! As in 10 years old, not 13!! orZombie Logan trying to seduce Mary Anne.Personally, I think it looks like Logan is on crack, and Mary Anne kinda looks like one of those porcelain dolls.and OMG @ Because that adoring tilt of the head definitely indicates that someone would like Logan's balls in his face.My first thought when I saw this cover was 'Aww, Jackie seems to really... um really like this guy.'

I'm from Kentucky, and when I was ten I wrote Ann a letter complaining about the terrible, terrible accent she gave Logan. She sent me back a form letter covered with rubber kittycat stamps in purple ink, along with a brief handwritten note at the bottom that said she had relatives in Lousville and that's how they sounded to her. Her ears need cleaning, I think.

The British cover really freaks me out. Logan looks like a thirty year old man and Mary Anne looks like a ten year old girl. It all looks like a very special episode in which we will discuss very nice grown-ups who like kids....too much.

Yeah, this book messes up and claims MA has pierced ears, and in the one where Stacey moves back to New York (I think, and I think that's # 12 or 13) Dawn also has pierced ears. And yet neither of them has pierced ears until #21, Mallory and the Trouble with Twins which I read to death when I was still a li'l girl dreaming about pierced ears.

Yup, Stacey was all about the underwear department for MA in this one, and in another, Kristy calls MA "romantic." I don't really get it . . . I know there's some weird stuff out there about people who m*s*u*b*t* with showerheads, and for all the times the BSC girls refer to Mary Anne's tendency to cry a lot as "gusher," just sounds all weird. Plus, MA's just not that appealing. Ever. But then, neither is Logan, no matter how often the ghostwriters try to say otherwise.

For all my BSC-hating (which this part of the reason I "LUV" this blog) I have to say . . . Mary Anne's surprise party thing in this book was my absolute favorite non-piercing-related scene in any of the books. I loved that she ran away; I love that she felt guilty for it; I love that there was actually some emotional depth to the situation - Mary Anne's guilt over running off combined with her shock that anyone would be so mean to her (making her the center of attention when they all KNOW she hates it) and her friends' worries that they pushed her too far . . . definitely not as complicated as some of the SVJH books, but entertaining all the same!